How do you get away with the perfect murder? Easy: get someone else to do it for you. Such is the premise of Alfred…
Director Alan J. Pakula helped usher in a decade of gritty, morally ambiguous New York thrillers with 1971’s Klute, a nervy neo-noir starring Donald…
In the opening minutes, an individual practices tennis serves to no one. After every two serves, there is a momentary black screen. Some serves…
Spike Lee’s 1991 Jungle Fever, a work with a title and subject matter seemingly designed to court — indeed, demand — controversy, is at…
The playfulness of Chantal Akerman is, throughout her work, always nebulous. A smile, a laugh, a tall-standing stride: these do not signify transparent gestures,…
One of the great madcap poets of the American cinema, Alan Rudolph has seemingly slipped into irrelevance since his heyday in the 1980s and…
For more than five decades now, Clint Eastwood’s longevity as both an A-List Hollywood star and director has been nothing short of astonishing. Sure,…
The French New Wave has long been the go-to introductory movement for burgeoning cinephiles. Unlike other, more loosely-defined national “waves,” it has reasonably delineated…
Although The Flowers of St. Francis sits comfortably within one Roberto Rossellini’s most lauded creative stretches , it’s a work that still doesn’t exactly…
A chandelier swings in the gloom, tremulous strings kick in and tension mounts as the camera pulls in. The glinting fixture rocks back and…
Once seen as a tragic fall from grace, today it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to hear someone sing the praises of…
Long considered a classic among grindhouse enthusiasts and video store dirtbags, Abel Ferrara’s Ms .45 has enjoyed a popular reappraisal in recent years. Its…
It’s been nearly two decades since there’s been a new motion picture written or directed by George Armitage, a name that would appear foreign…
1994’s Serial Mom marked something of a turning point for writer-director John Waters. A filmmaker who built his name and reputation on such outre,…
1975 was a pivotal year for actress Delphine Seyrig. In addition to work with the radical feminist collective Les Insoumises, alongside director Carole Roussopoulos,…
After releasing notorious flop/secret success Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977, director John Boorman turned to an attempt at producing a Lord of the…
Under the guise of complacent nothingness, the characters of Philippe Garrel’s Regular Lovers manage to paradoxically enact and participate in sundry relationships, death drives,…
When I was 22, my best friend and I lived together for a while in the apartment where I grew up. We were a…